


Breakpoint

by Electric_Apple



Category: BSG - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Starbuck is made of awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electric_Apple/pseuds/Electric_Apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The body beneath hers is softer in death, its limbs yield to her weight and the soft puff of air as the last breath of life escapes it is warm and human-like against her neck. And if she didn't hurt so damn much, she might be inclined to laugh at the irony of it: sprawled here beaten half to death but victorious because organs, joints, skin, they can all be damaged, all be made to bleed and break and bruise and the human weaknesses they so despise are inherent in the bodies they’ve so carefully created.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breakpoint

Son of a _bitch_ , she hurts.

The body beneath hers is softer in death, its limbs yield to her weight and the soft puff of air as the last breath of life escapes it is warm and human-like against her neck. And if she didn't hurt so damn much, she might be inclined to laugh at the _irony_ of it: sprawled here beaten half to death but victorious because organs, joints, skin, they can all be damaged, all be made to bleed and break and bruise and the human weaknesses they so despise are inherent in the bodies they’ve so carefully created.

Of course, the flip-side of this profound piece of philosophy is the very pertinent realisation that she is also human, and her body is also badly damaged. There is the tingle of returning sensation in her right leg – not pain, not exactly, but the prickle of blood rushing to a new wound and the answering throb of damaged tissue. _Muscle, maybe_. She twitches her foot experimentally, just to see if it's as bad as she thinks it might be. She finds the energy to be surprised that it's not. Tries the other foot, the movement indiscernible to anyone who may be watching. Also good. Her right hand, then, fingers curling into her palm. Left hand, and this time it does hurt, the familiar stab of broken bones in a couple of fingers.

She sucks in a reflexive breath and _frak me_ if that doesn't hurt more - worse than her fingers, worse than her leg, worse than the pain in her belly. Momentarily, at least, this is the worst pain she can remember being in.

Her ribs are on frakking _fire_.

But no, she knows real pain. Smashed knees, _that_ is pain. Plasma burns possibly qualify, too. _This_ , this shit, _this_ isn’t pain. She won't _let_ it be pain.

So she catches one ragged, sobbing breath, then another, then another. There’s a sudden rush of realisation - where she is, why she's here. _The arrow, where's the frakking arrow?_ A second thought, slamming behind it. _Gotta move, could be more of them_. So she is preparing to brace her arms and force her muscles and she make herself move when two hands come down to grip her by the shoulders, rolling her carefully, lifting her carefully. There’s a disembodied voice somewhere above her: “Okay, okay, come here. Okay.”

And just because things couldn’t _possibly_ be any more frakked up than they are right now, she blinks through the blood in her eyes to see Helo’s familiar face peering concernedly back at her.

 _Dead dead dead, you’re dead, she left you, you’re dead!_ But here he is, right here in front of her, and she knows that grin, that tilt of his head, that familiar lift of his eyebrows and it _is_ him, it _is_.

“I can't believe it.” His voice cracks. “You…are like the _last_ person I expected to see.”

“I could say the same thing about you.” Her ribs ache with the effort of getting the words out.

He laughs; the sound echoes in her heart. “You okay?”

She manages a small gesture that might be a smile. Grunts non-commitally; the sound easier than words. Then Helo lets out a soft noise of wry sympathy, and frak it, it’s worth the pain to reach out and clutch at him, to draw him close, to feel him whole and _alive_ against her. “Oh, I missed you.”

He hugs her, a little more tightly than her battered body can stand, not tightly enough for her battered emotions and aching soul. Over his shoulder, she can see the glistening tip of the titanium rod that saved her life. The pounding in her head stops her laughter; it does not stop the small throb of triumph in her gut. _Ha!_ She is strangely, hysterically _thrilled_ by the sight of the iron bar sticking through its abdomen. _Killed that blonde bitch_ good.

In the back of her mind, a nagging thought. _Could have been me. Wanted it to be me._ The part of her that desperately longs for survival momentarily defeated by the part of her seeking the oblivion of death. Gods' truth? _Never meant to make it this far._

But the survival instinct kicks back in at the soft sound of approaching footsteps on the tier above them. She has Helo’s weapon out of its holster and aimed at the sound before conscious thought; she can't see more than a few feet in front of her, not with the blood and dust mingling in her eyes and caked on her eyelashes, but she can hear and if she's going down now, after all the shit she's been through, she's damn well going to go down _fighting_.

Helo lunges at her as her finger closes around the trigger. “No!”

Her hands are shaking and she has to fight to reload but the round clicks into the chamber with a satisfying _clunk_. Tries to find the reason in her voice; tries to make him see it too. "She's a _cylon_."

"You can’t, you can’t.” He sounds - defeated, perhaps. Desperate. Mostly, he sounds resolute. "She’s pregnant."

And this knowledge, this _confession_ , well, it's just too much.

She's standing here and Helo's hands are on her arms and she has a weapon levelled at the machine wearing Sharon's face and it's too much, there's no way to make sense of this or come back from this and it's _just too frakking much_.

Billions are dead and they are dying every day up on that ship, dying slowly and quickly from wounds and burns and disease and accidents and often from just plain grief. And down here, it’s all gone, all of it, _everything_ they knew, everything familiar and loved and once held dear. Helo is before her but not a part of her, not anymore, and the emptiness of this realisation aches because he's never been as far away from her as he is right now, standing here before her. She's betrayed a man she loves more than life and the man she wants to love her and the memory of the only man who has ever loved her. Her gods and her crew and her vows as an officer – herself, the only good things she ever had inside, she's betrayed. And now she is here, in this moment, and she knows she's lost _everything_ , but it's this one thing, this small bundle of cells he says is multiplying and dividing in the belly of the almost-machine she once called her friend, it is this that brings her undone.

Her knees buckle. She sags against the wall.

The despair pours from her mouth, because it has nowhere else to go.


End file.
